Siano, Innofidei settle mobile TV spat

LONDON – Siano Mobile Silicon Ltd. and Innofidei Inc., two fabless chip companies competing in mobile TV applications, have agreed to drop court cases and other proceedings against each other in China and the United States.

Siano (Kfar Netter, Israel) said that through direct negotiations outside of the courts the companies had agreed to recognize each other's intellectual property and work to further increase the success of CMMB (China Multimedia Mobile Broadcasting) technology in China and other countries. It was not stated whether any money changed hands to enable the agreement.

All disputes in China and the United States have been resolved, including the patent infringement lawsuit commenced by Innofidei (Beijing, China) against Siano and Garmin Inc. in May 2010 in China, and the patents invalidation applications and appeals by Garmin and Siano before the Patent Re-examination Board, and Siano's lawsuit against Innofidei in California for anti-competitive behavior, which was initiated in October 2010.

"We are happy about this reconciliation on the basis of mutual respect for each other's intellectual property right, and we look forward to further contributing to the growth of China's mobile digital TV market," said Tom Zhang, Innofidei's CEO, in a statement from Siano.

"We are pleased to hear that Siano and Innofidei have reached an agreement, and have agreed to drop their mutual litigations. This is good news to China's CMMB industry, and aids in promoting CMMB even beyond China, to other countries," said Sheng Zhifan, Director of Science & Standards Division, Science Department of SARFT (China's State Administration of Radio Film and Television).

Innofidei is one of more than 80 fabless chip companies included in the China Fabless Profile & Database report prepared by EE Times Confidential. The report can be ordered from https://subscriptions.eetimes.com/chinafabless


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